Speeds, unless you really have a good knowledge of diamonds, I would hesitate buying in St Maarten. My opinion may not be very popular but in my experience, St Maarten has some beautiful jewelry but not always the best quality. Do you know the differences between the various certificates, diamond grading, table numbers, crown and pavilion angles, depth numbers etc? Diamond cutting is a science and art. It is easy to be taken advantage of and yes, I know you all have your favourite stores. I have been to many of them and saw the garbage they were trying to sell as high quality diamonds and was very disappointed. Get on pricescope.com and get some diamond knowledge. Check with their online vendors and see what diamond of the quality and size you are happy with are currently prices at. I ended up picking a diamond from a store call Good Old Good from New York. The diamonds available in SXM could not compete with what they had in NY.